


Lips of Milk, Dreams of Honey

by noondaize



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Choi San is Whipped, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gentle Kissing, Gentleness, Guards, Implied Sexual Content, Jung Wooyoung is Whipped, Light Angst, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Prince Choi San, Princes & Princesses, Royal Guard Jung Wooyoung, Royalty, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-13 17:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28781799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noondaize/pseuds/noondaize
Summary: San smiles something iridescent and unforgiving, beckoning Wooyoung with a damp hand that rose above the rivers of his bath.“Then come, young guard. Allow your prince to make this decision for you.”(Wooyoung is still learning the difference between work and play— though San is not far behind, still trying to make peace with his daydreams and accept their reality.)
Relationships: Choi San/Jung Wooyoung
Comments: 8
Kudos: 60





	Lips of Milk, Dreams of Honey

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there, here’s a little thing I wrote not too long ago that I’d forgotten to post.
> 
> Happy 2021! I technically haven’t been here since last year (lol) but it’s good to post again.
> 
> I’ve been on such a royalty AU trip these days, so I might make more of these for different ships :) I hope you enjoy this. 
> 
> -n.

San has always been a vixen.

Or so the rumors have said, many times over. The many ways in which a haphazard attempt to ruin his reputation had travelled had begun to grow dull and simplified, especially with the added knowledge that there was no real proof of such a thing. 

Some blamed San’s lack of promiscuity on virginity— which, he was in fact not. Others blamed it on his haughtiness, saying it prevented him from touching anyone of a “lesser class.” In truth, San had cared less for classes than anyone most royal workers would ever meet. He was kind in equal parts to those above and below, choosing to see them all on a steady ground.

(“We all walk the earth,” he’d once said go a kitchen boy. A tall and easily frightened helper by the name of Mingi, with a constant tremor so minute it’d be nonexistent to the untrained eye. But of course, San was keen on even the smallest of things. He’d noticed right away how the tremor picked up in his presence, quick to converse with the boy himself.

“You are no less than me just as I am no less than you. Let us be comfortable around one another, okay?” 

Mingi hadn’t known what to say to that, but one flash of San’s award-winning smile immediately made his shoulders sag with ease. He offered a sweet and crooked grin of his own in return.

_Typical_ , Wooyoung thought with a smile of his own.)

Despite the rumors which travelled around in circuits with those who loathed his demeanor, San had not once been perturbed. He had no time to concern himself with people obsessed with his bedroom life, and in fact found it rather childish that they wished to know. 

They sent a thousand arrows his way, all engraved with different theories and whispers. Most of which were barely a wisp and had no substantial evidence, which again caused the entire ordeal to fall flat. People— though few in number in comparison to the grand scheme of his kingdom— wanted to know if he was using his right as a prince to abuse and manipulate a double life. More than likely that of a sexual manner. 

The only person to be privy to this knowledge was San’s closest confidant and his longtime childhood friend, Wooyoung. 

  
Wooyoung’s life was signed away to San at birth, his parents carrying the lineage of royal guards whose parents took well to the care of the royal family. It went on and on backwards, with each child born to that of a royal child, forever interlocked from first breath to final words. Most were, at the very least, best friends. Others were like siblings to one another, at one with their prince or princess and carrying a bond thicker than sharing blood.

Wooyoung, however, was much different from the previous guards. Just as San strayed from the traditional role of a prince.

The moment they were placed together, with a few-months-old San carried above the sight of a newborn Wooyoung and babbling away at the presence of another infant, their fate was sealed. Their parents knew it to be true, and as they grew, they understood that fate better than anyone.

The truth was an obvious one that Wooyoung finds surprisingly unmentioned by theorists and gossipers. It’d shocked him when his name had not come up even once among those who wished for San’s downfall, though the prince marked it as his blessings being granted after long nights of prayer. That had shocked Wooyoung even more, considering San believed in nothing other than himself and Wooyoung. He’d needed no god to prosper, yet from time to time he prayed for Wooyoung’s sake.

Maybe if that knowledge got out to others, they’d fit the puzzle pieces together seamlessly. 

Or perhaps no one would ever know.

The prince and his royal guard were bonded even farther than life and bond. In truth, they were bonded by love too. All of their firsts and lasts dedicated to one another in a lifelong monogamous relationship. 

Despite the troubles which came with it— the things Wooyoung and San had to hear of one another without being able to object and stand for their lover, the time apart and the space in which they weren’t allowed together— they’d have it no other way. 

  
Wooyoung joins San nearly every place the prince goes. From sunrise to sunset he is his shadow and his shield, in tandem with him as they walk or move. Wooyoung was more keen on being a ghost in the beginning, ever-hovering and intimidating as he was trained, but upon San’s disapproval of the method, he became more colloquial. Not enough to make him seem less of a threat, but enough for everyone to become comfortable in his presence.

Wooyoung was very much a mischievous person, and hiding that nature was very difficult outside of work. Lucky for him that he was nearly married to someone who was the exact same way, and their amusement could hardly come to a close when they were left alone together. It made it easier to follow San around and guard him, though the actual act of guarding was sometimes discarded in favor of joining his prince in fun. San was more than capable of taking care of himself physically, and Wooyoung knew better than to take his job literal enough to avoid caring for San in other ways. He kept him from hurting emotionally too, and was his source of comfort on many over-sensitive nights where San’s emotions began to assault him.

They were one another’s touchstone, and hardly existed outside of each other unless instructed to.

Which means that Wooyoung joins San in places like this, too. In the large bathroom that contains a giant basin in the floor, filled to the brim with water warm enough to steam the glass ceiling. The water itself is a soft purple color, swaying lightly with bits of lavender petals skewed across it. It’s romantic and calming, the exact type of bath San takes to when he wishes to ruminate and soak, peeling away the burdens of his everyday thoughts and allowing them to drift off with the water as it’s emptied. It’s a sort of healing process the prince rarely takes, though he’s begun to make a habit of it in these recent days.

San pays Wooyoung no mind as he strips himself of his clothing, settling into the water little by little. He had very few bruises or breaks in his skin, though the ones that existed were all scars by now. Wooyoung observes the way the water swallows him welcomingly, and San continues to sink until he is curled into a ball along the underwater bench molded as one with the basin’s wall. His knees rise for his chin to settle on them, eyes unfocused and mind more than likely drifting elsewhere by now. Sometimes Wooyoung wonders if they travel with the way of the water, far gone and seeing a better life outside of this one. San has always been one to fantasize in an attempt to cope with his current stress. 

“Prince,” he calls to him easily, watching the delay in which San raises his head after hearing the call. His eyes remain a glassy reflection of the pool, soft purple blending with his natural color. He looks struck dumb and naive, vulnerability suddenly as far out as such a thing could stretch itself. 

“You need to wash, my prince,” Wooyoung sighs. “You’ll prune up if you stay like this. God, my boyfriend will be a raisin!” 

He says the last part in a teasing manner, though San perks up immediately at the title and uncurls quickly. He reaches over the ledge, holding on with a grip so vice-like it turns his knuckles pure white. 

“Come join me,” he beckons. The very image of a siren singing his sweet song, lips and hair falling in damp curls that drip with honey and venom. “Come in, Wooyoungie. Hold me.” 

The guard stares at him in disbelief, the complete reversal of his demeanor enough to cause Wooyoung a sense of whiplash. San’s sharp eyes are round with innocence, lips puckered in the beginning of a pout. A picturesque killer feigning ignorance, calling for Wooyoung so sweetly only to devour his heart right from between his ribs. Filling his lungs with lavender and sedating him with his beautifully deft hands.

Perhaps San really was a vixen.

“Sannie...”

“Please,” San calls, voice sweet. “Let’s just be intimate for a little while, hm? It will help me unwind better.” 

Wooyoung rocks back and forth on his legs, desperate for this single chance to hold his love between his flesh and bones, but undeniably frightened to. Wooyoung loves the idea of getting caught— a thrill that could at times be considered perverted— but he’d never leave San on a sinking raft that would send him into the depths of shame and emptiness. His life was dedicated to protecting the prince, not threatening him in soft and sweet ways that could easily sabotage. San was not someone he aimed to ruin piece by piece, nor pick him apart until he was disrespected and looked down upon.

“Prince,” he sighs, running a hand through his hair. “We have no privacy. We’d be paranoid if we did this.”

Still, San doesn’t let up.

“We can pretend, just this once.” 

Wooyoung gnaws at his bottom lip, spine snapped straight as he does his best to keep his head from tilting downwards past the water.

“Prince, with all due respect— pretending is not a part of my life’s duty.” 

“I know,” San grins at him— the subdued shimmer of a thousand moons embedded in the small sliced openings that held his gem-like eyes. “Of all the things you signed your life away to, this was not one of them. 

“But make no mistake, that this is exactly what I’m asking of you. It’s an _order_ , guard Jung.”

“Your Highness, I cannot—“ 

“Please,” San says suddenly. His eyes have turned bitter, his lips overflowing with desperation. Everything in him embodies the word, a hundred pleas embedded within each move, scrawled deep into the fabric of every muscle. “Please, Wooyoung. I beg of you, just this once; won’t you come to me?” 

Wooyoung feels his resolve crumble at the edges; a rigid foundation softened with the heat of San’s mouth, opening like the lid of a furnace. He wants to say no, just as he was trained to. He wishes to back away from San easily, words of denial upon his tongue as he shields himself from the natural course of human feelings. Feelings were one of the many things he’d signed away from birth, for the sake of being at San’s side like this. 

He had no human right to _want._ Wanting was done in his place by his prince, and Wooyoung was confined to a space outside of his body— outside of the duty that bounded him like a chain— stuck still in his place to watch as his life was picked out before him by other hands.

But he trusted San with his heart— readily and wholesomely so. There was not a single bit of rebellion within his veins that he regretted of his childhood days. That fire which San had instilled in him was what gave him this endless confidence, quick to allow the prince the right to slash away at his inner organs until they were minuscule bits if he saw it fitting. In the face of danger and fortune alike, Wooyoung was not his own. 

He wouldn’t have it any other way. 

“I cannot make decisions, my prince. That which is out of my control remains in your hands.” Wooyoung says quickly. But his tone has begun to fade into normalcy— an unpretentious hum that had become their calling card. San smiles something iridescent and unforgiving, beckoning Wooyoung with a damp hand that rose above the rivers of his bath. 

“Then come, young guard. Allow your prince to make this decision for you.” 

With that, Wooyoung steps closer and closer, allowing the dripping pads of San’s fingers to stain the cuff of his silken garments. The water alone did little beyond darken the fabric, but something so distinctly warm and writhing and _San_ made it tinge so deeply, Wooyoung begins to worry it will never come out. Evidence of their night will remain in such a small way— in that coy little gaze San will dart downwards, a smile curling upon his Cheshire lips at Wooyoung once he spots the signature of his masterpiece. 

“Bathe with me,” San pouts up at him. His eyes of milk and his lips of honey, the glow of his warm porcelain skin the promise land Wooyoung has dreamt of for many nights. The expanse of unmarked flesh leaves him remembering nights of thick, heavy breath. The way he’d curled his fingers around his bedsheets and knocked his trembling legs together clumsily, sailing along the surface of the soft linen below him. 

With such temptation existing before him in the form of his most beloved treasure, who was Wooyoung to deny the fortune that has come his way? Who was Wooyoung to defy anything that so much as resembled a remnant of San? 

“Your Highness wishes for me to be completely nude?” He asks it just to be cheeky, enjoying the way it tugs and scrapes at exactly what he was aiming for. San’s cheeks roll a red carpet beneath the skin, the royal flush of his body indeed resembling all the fine gold and poise he possessed in abundance. His eyebrows furrow and Wooyoung feels conflict arise within him— caught between reverence and greed. 

“I want to feel your skin,” San says after a beat of silence. Despite the way his thin body begins to peach, he still holds onto the eye contact he and Wooyoung begin to make as the royal guard undresses. “It calms me to know you are near.” 

“Must it be only me, prince? Surely you have said these words to many.” 

It’s a ruse, they both know. Wooyoung’s silent retaliation as they begin to settle their bones in a space existing out of their titles. With the stage dead and gone away, their true selves take the time to unfurl from their slumber. They move slowly, with Wooyoung dropping away his buttoned and tied blouse as he keeps an eyebrow quirked up, challenging the young prince below him.

“There is only one of you,” San smiles up at him, “and I would think you to know me better than anyone. Enough so that you’d catch your tongue before you spew any more worthless rhetorics.” 

Wooyoung laughs at that, completely bare as he sinks into the large basin of warm water San had been soaking in. It faintly has smelled of lavender the entire duration of the bath, but upon breaching the surface, Wooyoung gets a flare of the scent anew. 

“Is the water fine?” San’s lips curl in that familiar way, vulnerability making a home here among them. Wooyoung sees the shift— minute, slow and almost imperceptible— but undeniably present in the room. San becomes less a prince and more the normal boy Wooyoung had spent his entire life wrestling and holding dear. The boy he loved more than life. The boy that was his life.

The boy that everyone else warned would be dead if he allowed himself to want.

“Calm,” San coos at him. He moves closer, just so that their knees are touching below the surface, and reaches palms to cup Wooyoung’s honey-kissed skin. His cheeks warm in the small cusp of San’s grasp, welcomed home between them. “It’s just you and I. Nothing is wrong.” 

Wooyoung sighs, jabbing a finger into the petite ridge of San’s rib cage— and reminds himself he’s whole, and present. San is safe, in a bath smelling of flowers, and they are well. 

“It’s hard to rid myself of my duty,” the guard admits. “So long of being reprimanded by others and I can’t help but—“

“To let it become second nature.” 

San’s smile turns melancholy, leaning closer to press a chaste kiss to the tip of Wooyoung’s nose before leaning their heads together. He takes a deep breath in, sounding pained and wishing to forget. With all that Wooyoung has witnessed his prince go through, he has not a single doubt that he is both in agony and regret the majority of the time. Weights of the world Wooyoung could never understand nor remove from San’s shoulders lied there, even on the prince when he was sleeping soundly. 

“I know, Woo. I know that they’ve molded you and I into everything they wanted us to be. But they can’t take this away, no matter how hard they try.” 

He gives Wooyoung a soft and reverent kiss on his upper lip, just shy of a full and devouring one. “Don’t let them take this away. It’s the one thing we’ve still found a way to keep.” 

The chasing kiss they share is initiated by Wooyoung, moving forward with his own hands to hold San safely between them. He’s gentle with the prince— not because his lover is fragile, but because he is precious. He could never be replaced, not by a thousand heirs nor a thousand different kingdoms. San was not a pawn to Wooyoung the way he was to everyone else, he was— and always will be—

“My King,” Wooyoung smiles into his lips. “You are undeniably eager at the moment.” 

San whines at that, embarrassed as he pulls away. Yet still, he shifts closer into Wooyoung’s lap, unashamed at the full contact of their bare bodies with nothing left to modesty.

“You try being a public icon. I’m constantly reminded not to touch anyone at all for weeks on end, tell me how that’d make you feel.” 

Wooyoung laughs harshly, a high-pitched squeak that San’s come to love. Their giggles blend together; that of school children on a scorching day, scraping up their knees in the gardens as they run and play. 

And Wooyoung realizes that San is right. That no amount of court rule or royal hierarchy could take this away. That monarchy or crowns or titles of a kingdom’s government reign could not destroy what they’d built so intricately their entire lives. 

Nothing of this world or the next over could dethrone their higher power— which rose even above the impending doom of arranged marriage and the expected production of an heir.

They had love— have had it all their lives— and nothing could stop them from blooming. Their young, innocent devotion was forever theirs, and had been since the day they were born. Born to love one another until their souls were no more. 

“Your majesty,” Wooyoung calls to him, amused at the way San shakes when referred to as such. “I love you more than life itself.”

San leans into him, body writhing atop his lap but face filled to the brim with an emotional pleasure. He finds his home in the crook of Wooyoung’s neck, where he gives the smallest suckle of affection.

“And I, you, my knight. I love you more than love exists.” 

Wooyoung knows they’re cheesing, cracking horrendously large smiles that threaten to rip apart their cheeks like a seam. 

And yet because it’s theirs, he can’t find a reason to laugh at himself. 

“I wish we could run away,” San murmurs below his breath. He lifts his head to show Wooyoung his twitching lips, words upon them that threaten to cascade like a waterfall. “I wish I could live in a small cottage with you and be married and bake bread. Wouldn’t that be sweet? In some other life we’re neighbors in cottages— childhood friends who grow up to be lovers. And _oh,_ oh I’d get to wear those dresses I envy! And we can grow a garden!” 

Wooyoung watches him muse, eyes alight with the prospect of an impossible reality. It makes his heart ache for his prince, playing pretend to himself to ease the sting of what awaited outside of their moments of bliss.

“Wouldn’t that be sweet, Wooyoungie?” 

He catches San’s gaze, contemplative and glistening with unshed tears. Frowning at him despite how hard his lips beg to twitch in his practiced smile. 

“It would be,” Wooyoung chirps back, hoping his positivity would edge a little onwards into San’s growing storm cloud. “But I like what we are now. I have you and you have me, for life. I don’t want anything else.” 

San drops his head, hanging it low like the bent branches of a dying tree. He smiles and nods, a small thing that holds neither meaning nor warmth.

“We can’t always be unhappy with our lives,” Wooyoung tells him. “You said it yourself, didn’t you? They can’t take this away from us. This is ours. All of our time spent running in the gardens and play-fighting with our plastic swords— that’s _ours._ That’ll always be ours to keep.” 

San looks up at him, finally crying as his eyes had been so keen on avoiding. Wooyoung is quick to pull him closer and try to placate him; kisses atop the crown of his head and the apples of his cheeks plentiful in hopes that it’d make his prince settle.

“It’s ours,” San sniffles, “but we can’t control it. What if one day they take you away from me? What if one day it all falls apart? My marriage and my expectation to have a baby— how are we going to best those things?”

Wooyoung knows San well, better than most would ever understand or give him his due credit for. And in a time like this, he sees how deeply the fragility runs. This is what San ruminates about at night when they are not allowed to see one another beyond a professional setting. This is what San contemplates on long carriage rides where Wooyoung is confined to a separate car. This is exactly what keeps him anxious enough to want to feel Wooyoung’s skin— this looming, nauseating notion that what they have is temporary regardless of how much work they’ve put into it. 

“There’s no immediate answer,” Wooyoung sighs, suddenly wishing he were as wise as the others he’s known. If he could have asked some of the court’s men like Yeosang or Seonghwa, perhaps they’d have something more profound fo say. 

But at this current moment in time, this little pocket they’d stolen away from themselves, Wooyoung was all San had. Wooyoung was all San was looking towards, expectant and hopeful and wishing for something to hold onto.

And Wooyoung had sworn that as long as he lived, his hand was always outstretched towards the prince. 

“But there doesn’t need to be an answer,” he settles on. “We’ll take it day by day as it comes. That’s all we can do. That’s all _anyone_ can do.

“We can still have a piece of our dream. I can help you make a dress you’d like, clear out a corner of the unruly courtyard and grow flowers there. We can sneak away into the kitchens and make bread and get flour in our hair.” 

San looks at him with fondness, the rising tides behind his irises beginning to calm. He gives Wooyoung another kiss— sweet and appreciative with a catlike smile curling at his lips and biting at his deft tongue. 

“I want to get in trouble with you,” Wooyoung whispers against his mouth. “And I want to face petty consequences for making out with you in the study. I want to be yelled at by the rest of the guards for dancing with you in public at the next royal ball. I want to crush the hopes and fantasies of rival princes who come to steal you away.” 

_I want to make you happy. I want to keep you close._

_I want to give my life away to you forever._

“You’re _wanting,_ ” San says— breathless, gasping for air as though there’s a sudden hole within his lungs. One allowing love to pour in, until his breaths were made entirely of adulation. “You want these things, with me?” 

_He will die if you desire so selfishly._

“I want what you want,” Wooyoung says quietly. A secret, that he’s whispering. “But I hope you want to be happy with me.” 

San presses infinitely closer, bodies molding together as he rocks upon the flesh of Wooyoung’s lap, the water around him rolling in waves. He digs his nose into the crook of Wooyoung’s neck again, nails creating a portrait of their love along the guard’s shoulder blades— the long thin beads of what was left of his wings from his time in heaven, as San will reverently recall at a later date. 

“I want you,” San huffs— tone echoing that of a demand instead of a request. “I want you and you want me, right? For life, right?” 

Wooyoung laughs into his shoulder, holding his prince and directing his rocking so that it makes the thinner boy shiver. 

“Of course. For life, my king.” 

“Be my king,” San cries, body curling inwards and clutching onto Wooyoung like a vice that he’ll never be rid of. “Be mine. Be mine, be mine, _be mine—“_

“I am yours,” Wooyoung hushes him, “I always have been and always will be. Because I want to.” 

San sobs a little within his hiding place, overjoyed and possibly overwhelmed. A sensory overload that he had not anticipated, but welcomed either way. In some sense, despite having his every beck and call answered on a whim, San rarely ever got what he truly wanted. Wooyoung knows this to be true. 

He feels the prince’s smile on his skin, threatening to mold it with his sharp little teeth so that the feeling remains potent. A tattoo left by psyche alone, like a patch of a memory deeply engraved and impossible to forego. But Wooyoung only presses them closer together, unafraid of the possibilities of such a thing occurring. If San marked him, scorched and burned him, or molded them into one— Wooyoung would mind none of it. Because he wanted to. Because _they_ wanted to.

“The water is beginning to run cold,” Wooyoung smiles. “Perhaps we should empty it now.” 

He feels the puff of air San takes, mouth open and warm as it latches onto the flesh of his throat. 

“Let’s just stay a little longer,” San murmurs, continuing to nibble on Wooyoung’s skin as though to taste it.

“My prince, you’ve duties to tend to.” 

That stops the prince’s nibbling, pulling away to give the guard distraught eyes. His happiness rots away inside of them, like the fall of leaves during Autumn’s passing. Beautiful, soft, messy and uncared for. 

Wooyoung cups his face with damp hands, feeling the heat of his flushing cheeks below them. He rubs little circles into his skin, soothing it below him and patching the fallen pieces back together one by one.

“Don’t look so sullen,” he sighs. “You know that you must get back to your duties eventually.” 

“And what of you?” San frowns at him, beginning to gnaw on his bottom lip in a rising anxiety.

Wooyoung smiles— radiant and truly joyous, knowing the prince loves him this much. 

“I will be by your side, always. I am your guard, after all, and I have given my life to you.” 

San tilts his head in a question— a silent one that rings between them for confirmation, though more a demand for Wooyoung to say those words than anything else.

“Because I want to,” Wooyoung murmurs. “I gave my life to you, because I want to. So please accept me this way, and keep me as your guard.” 

San does not oppose him, when he leans for a kiss. Nor does San oppose him when their kiss turns heated and their skin melts together. 

And when they become one, San not once refuses Wooyoung the right to praise and be praised, for the declaration of love to settle both ways.

The people had told Wooyoung that wanting was a dangerous game; that it would lead to death and travesty and heartache. 

But he is led, confidently and warmly, by the prince in his arms.

It’s not a game they’re opposed to playing. 

No matter the consequence, Wooyoung knows he _wants_ whatever lies at the end of this road.

His life belongs to San, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [Twitter!](https://twitter.com/sanniedaize) I would love to have some reader/writer friends to share ideas with and talk to ^^ 
> 
> Comments and kudos are not necessitated, but I appreciate them more than you could possibly know :) maybe leave a few if you enjoyed this enough for it.
> 
> -n. 


End file.
